


My Way Back to You

by februarystars26



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fix It Fic, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Dyad (Star Wars), Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, oh I guess it sort of takes place during TFA and post TROS, rey goes back in time to get her boyf, things go wrong!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:34:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22709332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/februarystars26/pseuds/februarystars26
Summary: This prompt was running around twitter and I just loved it. Rey finds a way to go back in time to save Ben, but misses her time target and ends up with peak "I wanna be a bad boy" Ben Solo. In this fic, she's dropped right back into the interrogation chamber and has to deal with a Ben she's trying to save, but doesn't really know.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 27
Kudos: 226





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh I had so much fun writing this please enjoy. It's basically her dealing with peak idiot Ben and still trying not to fall in love with him. Ideally this will be not a super long story and will update soon.

“You know what you’re doing, right?” Rose asked, a slight tremor in her voice. The immensity of what Rey was about to do seemed to finally dawn on her. 

Rey nodded, going over the passage in the Jedi texts again. “It’s simple. Go back to the death star. If I do this right, I’ll arrive right after I healed him. Instead of running I stay with him. We go to Ahch-To together and then to Exegol. I know what to do this time. I’ll keep him safe. I won’t fail.” 

“But still,” Rose reminded her gently, “you’re trying to...travel back in time. This isn’t just run of the mill Jedi stuff.” Rey just shrugged. “And…” Rose went on, “I know I don’t have to remind you but it’s only been two weeks since he died-”

“I know,” Rey cut her off sharply.

“I’m just saying,” Rose went on. “Do you know that you’re in the right space to do this?”

“Of course I am!”

Rose wrung her hands nervously, “I can read the translations of the texts, too, you know, and there’s a lot that can go wrong with this.” 

Rey paused and stared down at the ground. Rose was right. This was a crazy idea. But she had to. It took a lot of energy and most people couldn’t achieve it, some even had died trying, but she just had to commune with the force, ask, maybe beg, it to give her a second chance. And most people didn’t have their bond to draw on. She was confident it would guide him back to her. 

She had to do this for him. She owed it to him. She knew that if…

She felt her heart squeeze in her chest. 

She knew that if their situations were reversed he would do this for her. He would do everything to bring her back. He had done everything to bring her back. 

She took a deep breath and turned back to Rose. “I have to try, Rose.” She embraced the Resistance fighter, her first real friend made when there weren’t people shooting at her. She had told Rose everything, after. Rose understood why this was so important. Rose knew what Ben was. She pulled away and smiled, “Everything will change, but only for the better if I succeed.” 

Rose looked at her, “Then go get him.” 

\--

Rey grabbed her backpack and opened a pouch she only kept one thing in. His black shirt was so stiff it was borderline crunchy at this point. It smelled mostly like dirt and sweat, but if she held it close enough she swore it still smelled like him. She still slept with it sometimes, but other times it made her cry just to look at it. The plan was to use the shirt as her tether. Something physical that belonged to him that would help connect them. 

She sat down cross legged on the floor and put her hand on his shirt. She slipped into the meditation pattern she needed to be in to perform this. 

“I need to go to him,” she finally whispered.

And a voice like the force itself whispered back to her. “To the one who is your own?”

“Yes,” she replied. “Ben Solo.” 

“Where do you need to go to him?” the voice asked her. 

She tried to focus on the moment she wanted to go to, but with her heightened senses from the meditative trance everything went awry. She started thinking about Ben and was hit with an onslaught of every memory she had of him. The forest on Takodana. The snow in his hair on Starkiller. His big stupid chest both right in front of and far away from her touch. His back against hers in the throne room. His lips on hers. The way he felt when he slipped through her grasp for the last time. They wouldn’t stop coming to her. 

She was panting with the effort of just staying in the trance when the force spoke again, “You have to tell me where, young Jedi.” 

She tried to focus in on what she could from that moment. The cold air around them. The cold metal of the ship beneath her. His face without its scar. Him on the ground, finally shorter than her. And the fear in his eyes as he looked at her, unsure of what she was going to do. 

“When I healed his wounds,” she finally ground out, taking most of her effort just to say the words. She felt the force start to move all around her and finally passed out. 

\--

She woke up not in the way she thought she would. She assumed she’d just drop right into the moment she’d healed him, wide awake and ready to explain what was going on. 

Instead she felt like she had just woken up from a long nap. Her mouth was dry and her head was pounding. All her limbs were stiff, she assumed, from the effort. She hadn’t gotten the energy to open her eyes yet, but she felt the cold metal underneath her body, which made her heart leap. Maybe she actually had done it.  
She was aware that she was lying down, as well, so perhaps she’d passed out after healing him? And that would be where she would pick up from? She finally cracked an eye open and looked at the ceiling. 

Ceiling?

She jumped, panic rising exponentially. “Where am I?” she asked herself. 

But someone else replied. 

“You’re my guest,” came a modulated voice from across the room. 

No… she knew that voice. She whipped her head down to him, crouched on the floor, finally shorter than her in this cold dark room. His helmet on. His robes heavy and black. And then she knew exactly where she was. Somehow she’d managed to get herself thrown back to the moment Ben interrogated her on the day they’d met. 

So here she was, not faced with Ben the moment he was returning to the light, but Kylo Ren at his most petulant.

“Nooo,” she half groaned, half whined, throwing her head back against the interrogation chair. 

“Yes,” he replied, smugly, like he really was an intimidating monster, in that fake voice of his.

“Oh, not you,” she snapped at him, “I’m trying to think.”

She moved her arms. Right. She was strapped to a chair. On a star destroyer. With the man who had kissed her and died for her two weeks ago, but was currently in the phase of his life where he was doing his best bad guy impression. How could she have gotten this wrong? She did everything the texts had told her and… oh. 

There had been too many similarities to the moment she was thinking of, too many things to bind the situations and she’d been under such pressure… wires must have gotten crossed. And now she had gotten herself here, and had no idea what to do. 

“You, a scavenger, dare speak to Kylo Ren-” he started to reply. 

“Stop it,” she said angrily. She had this grand vision of returning to the death star and healing him and pressing her lips against his and finally telling him that she- 

“Tell me about the droid,” he demanded. Apparently, he could not be deterred. 

Rey, in her infinite wisdom, rolled her eyes. As if BB-8 was even in the top 10 things she was worried about right now. 

She could sense his rage building towards her as he extended a hand and tried to push into her thoughts. For a split second, it felt a little bit like bliss, having him back in her head space, and then she remembered what was happening and she jerked him out of her head easily, snapping her mental walls into place. 

He pulled his hand back like he’d been burned. 

He stared at her for a beat and then asked with what Rey thought might be a tremor in his voice, “Who are you?” 

Now she’d done it. 

She summoned the force and made easy work of her bindings. Then she stood and approached him like you might a timid animal. 

“I need to talk to you,” she said quietly. He didn’t seem interested in talking. He was already turning to walk toward the door. She bounded in front of him, blocking his path. 

“Do not tell Snoke that anyone is here. The two of us can talk alone,” she half ordered half plead. 

He took a step away from her. “You’re force sensitive. The Supreme Leader-”

“Ben, please,” she said and instantly wished she could take it back. Nothing could’ve shown her hand more quickly than saying his real name. 

Predictably, he was on her in a second. He grabbed her upper arms and held her against the wall. 

“How do you know that name?” he ground out from behind the mask. 

She resisted every urge to say ‘because I’m the other half of your soul you nerf herder,’ and instead very slowly, as calmly as she could, raised her hands to the latches on his helmet. 

The grip on her arms tightened, but otherwise, he made no other move. 

She turned the latches as gently as she could. She wasn’t sure if this was going to work. She wasn’t even sure what came next at this point. She only knew that whatever her plan to fix what she had done would be (because she had to fix this, I mean, right?), she was going to need Ben’s help. Worst case scenario, she was just going to need Ben not to turn her over to Snoke and have her killed on sight. Or, somehow even worse, she needed him to not draw a lightsaber on her any time soon.

She couldn’t fight him again. The minute she thought that bringing him back was even a possibility, the first thing she decided was that she could never fight him again. 

She still wouldn’t now, in whatever reality they’d found themselves in. And if… force forbid it… she couldn’t get everything set back to right and this was the only time she had with him, then by the stars, she’d take whatever time with him she could get. She wasn’t going to spend this time as his adversary, though. 

Hadn’t the two of them done enough of that?

His grip on her tightened again as she started to remove his helmet. 

“Ben… please,” she tried, and he relaxed his grip. She took his helmet the rest of the way off, watching the way his black curls tumbled out. 

“There you are,” she whispered, looking up at his bare face. Stars, had he really looked this young when they first met? 

He finally met her eyes. There was so much fear in them. Fear of her. Fear of what was happening to him. The last time they’d done this he’d taken his mask off in defiance and this time it’d been taken off of him in submission. 

“Who are you?” he asked her again. 

She swallowed, “I’m Rey, I’m-”

“With the Resistance? A trained force sensitive woman but also a scavenger girl from a nowhere planet? The only person who’s seen a map leading to the man who tried to kill me?”

I’m rethinking my vow to not fight you, she thought. “No, well, yes, I-”

“A spy then?” he went on. “A friend of my… of the general’s? Is she the one who told you my name? Did she send you here to throw me off? Disarm me? Kill me? What is it? Why are you here?” His words indicated he was confused, maybe even angry, but the tone of his voice… it was how he sounded when he took her hand on Ahch-To… he was scared of her but also of himself and what he was doing. 

“I promise I’ll explain. But right now, is there somewhere else we can speak? The two of us?” she implored him. 

He just stared at her. 

She sighed, “I’ll wear binders, I’ll keep my head down, and there won’t be any funny business, I promise.” In what she hoped was a show of good faith, she held up his helmet. “May I?” she asked. 

He nodded once. She fit his helmet back over his head. If she ever thought putting Ben’s helmet back on him would be a sign of trust, she would have laughed. 

He produced binders and put them around her wrists. “You think this is such a sign that you trust me,” he said as he fastened them. “It’s really a sign I trust you.” She looked up at him quizzically. 

He continued, “Because now I know you could get out of them any time you’d like.”

Oh, she thought, even like this, I think I’m still in love with him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's very smart but he's also very dumb, you know what I'm sayin'?
> 
> Mostly this chapter is them going back and forth on trust and the future and who they are to each other and stuff, because he is what I would call #damaged right now. Very Zuko season 2 you know what I mean? Oops, Avatar reference. Bye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a midterm tomorrow!! Which I am for sure now gonna fail, but at least y'all get your fic. Yay for you.

Rey might’ve had her mental defenses in place, but he certainly didn’t. His confusion and trepidation was rolling off of him in waves as they walked down the hallway. She felt like any more and she’d be able to taste it. 

He’s not used to having to keep his walls up, her brain supplied. Not yet. Not like the most exhausting year of her life, continually trying to block the bond from connecting at the most inopportune times. 

Knowing what she did now… if she could take it back… she would’ve left the bond open constantly, just to see him. But she was currently in a time that existed before all that, where he didn’t have to worry about any other force users feeling his thoughts or emotions except… Snoke. 

She turned to him, “You need to block off your thoughts, I can feel everything. Snoke will find out about me.” 

He bristled as he punched in an access code on a door and nudged her through. 

“What?” Rey said, spinning around to him. “You’re not actually considering taking me to him are you? Have you lost it?” 

He didn’t say anything. He just took off his helmet, one hand reaching up to tug at his curls. 

“Ben, explain how that would be a good idea,” she demanded. 

He stepped into her face, “You want me to explain? Why don’t you explain? I met a scavenger in the forest who looked like she had barely fired a blaster and now you’re suddenly fully trained in the force?”

“Ben-” she started. 

“And stop calling me that! Ben Solo is dead!” 

She flinched. He saw it. 

“What?” he demanded. 

“Nothing!” she shouted and backed away from him. She was really just hoping to buy herself some time while she formulated a plan of how much she could reveal to him. What he needed to know, and what could be left out. 

He huffed, “I should lock you up until you’re ready to tell me everything.”

“You wouldn’t do that to me!” she replied indignantly. 

“Oh really?” he started. “And why not?”

“Because I know you!” 

He let out a breath, “I can assure you, you do not.”

She stepped up into his face, “Oh, I can assure you, I do.”

He looked like he was almost about to smirk, “Well if you really do know me so well then it seems like you shouldn’t have any problem telling me what you know.”

Damn him, she thought. 

“And,” he added, “that includes telling me about the map to Luke Skywalker.” 

“Oh for kriff,” she said, finally turning away from him. “Will you forget about Luke? You have much bigger issues. We have much bigger issues.” 

“What issues could possibly be bigger than that?”

And as she opened her mouth to say it, the enormity of the situation dawned on her, “If I stay here much longer, everything will change,” she said.   
He looked wary of that statement… as he should. “Stay here? Where are you from? What will you change?” 

She looked up at him, now or never, she supposed. “I, um, I came here. From the future, by the force.” 

He stared at her for what had to be at least 20 uninterrupted seconds of silence. 

She was quieter when she spoke, knowing that he was either now completely stricken by what she was saying or he was about to throw her in the First Order equivalent of an asylum. 

“Could we, uh, maybe sit down for a minute?” she asked him cautiously. He didn’t move or respond. He just kept staring at her. His only movement was his eyes narrowing ever so slightly. Like she was something he needed to figure out. 

“Ben?” she tried again. 

He cleared his throat, and seemed to come back to himself. “Right, yes,” he motioned toward another door, “this way.” 

\--

He walked them into what was clearly his bedroom. It wasn’t that hard to tell. Every stitch of it was black. From the walls to the sheets and pillows on his bed. Everything was pitch black. 

It kind of made her chest hurt, even just to see him sit down on his bed and take off his mask again, putting his face in his hands. He was so deprived of anything, so restrained. In that moment, she wanted nothing more than to grab him and take him away from all this. Spare him from all the pain that was coming for him. Take him to some green planet and hide him, rest of the galaxy be damned. 

“So,” he said, breaking her out of her thoughts. “You used the force to come backwards in time.”

“Yes,” she relented. “But it was an accident. I wasn’t supposed to come back this far. I’m not supposed to be here, specifically.” 

“But clearly something brought you back here,” he looked like he was doing calculations in his mind. “Something tethered you to this moment.”

She bristled, “I was trying to find you in a different time, and I got something wrong.”

“Me?” he asked, arching an eyebrow. “So in this future we… know each other?” 

She blinked, “You could say that.” Stars, it was odd to talk to him when he had no idea who she was or what their relationship was like. 

He cocked his head like a curious animal, “Am I your master?” 

She squeezed her eyes closed and put a hand on her forehead. “No,” she answered flatly. “And please never say that combination of words to me ever again.” 

“Then how did you get so powerful? That you could perform that ritual?”

“Well, I learned it from the Jedi texts, and our b-,” she cut herself off. “You helped, sort of,” 

“The Jedi texts,” he said, disbelievingly. “The books that no one has seen in a thousand generations. You have them. And you read them.” 

“As a matter of fact I did,” she said through gritted teeth. 

“Oh? And who trained you to use them? And the force?” 

He alway did this, didn’t he? He always pushed her until she was truly at her breaking point. “No one at first, then Luke, then your mother, for a while. I had a lightsaber from her as well, not my blaster, though, that was from your father.” 

She had barely finished before he ignited his lightsaber and held it next to her neck. 

She glanced at the red saber, then leveled his stare, completely unimpressed, “You’re joking, right?”

He made a frustrated noise, “You understand how you sound, don’t you? You arrive by an ancient Jedi ritual into your past, after trying to find me in the future, you’re calling me Ben, you took my helmet off, you’re connected to my entire family. Who are you, Rey?” 

She took a deep breath, “I did this because I’m trying to… protect you… from something… in the future.” He looked unimpressed. “I don’t know how much I can say because if it changes something and I can’t get back to my time then… I don’t know what will happen.” 

He implored her to go on, clearly deciding that this wouldn’t be enough to convince him of anything. 

“In the future, we… look I’m trying to help you. I care about you. I wouldn’t have come back if I didn’t, would I? And yes I do know your family and I know you’re not on the best terms with them right now, but I know what they did to you.” 

He extinguished his saber. “Oh?” was simply all he said. 

She spoke as calmly as she could, “I know they sent you away, and I know Luke tried to kill you… but I know Snoke is hurting you, too.” She stepped toward him and tried to reach out her hand to his. 

He pulled it back. 

It stung, but she tried to shake it off. “But I’m not here for anyone else, I came back for you and only you, and yes I got it wrong, but maybe we can fix it together, maybe there’s a way to get back.” She clapped her hands. “I’ve seen you do things, figure things out, that are incredibly powerful so maybe-”

He cut her off… again, “Well, if you really know so much about my past and my future, and if you really are trying to protect me, why would I help you get back?”

Shit. 

“If I keep you here,” he continued, “I can become all knowing about my future. Sounds alright to me.” He had her off guard now. He easily pushed her back into the wall with the force and locked her arms to the wall with binders that couldn’t be opened with the force. 

“Ben!” she screamed at him. He didn’t acknowledge her. Instead, he made to leave. She needed to get him to stay, needed to get him to help her, to fix this, all of it. 

And then she felt them. Han, Chewie, Finn. In their massive distraction she hadn’t remembered that a rescue party was on their way. And from the feeling, it felt like they were leaving. If she had kept Ben here, they would’ve already had time to… 

Think about Ben right now, what does he want most?

She took a gamble, “In my future you become the Supreme Leader.” 

He froze, “What?”

“You heard me,” she said. He stepped closer to the wall, curiosity peaked. “You become Supreme Leader and more powerful than you could imagine but that’s only in my time, so unless you let us both get back to where we belong, I can’t guarantee it’ll still happen.” That was both true and a lie and though she felt bad about it, she was desperate. 

He seemed to consider this by staring angrily at her face. Come on, she thought. And then, the floor shuddered and shook. 

“Oh right,” she said, “and charges have been detonated under the base, so unless we leave right now, there will be no future for either one of us.” 

“And what about you?” he asked suddenly. 

“We do not have time for-”

“No,” he said. “What about you? You say you know me, you even care about me, but if I’m Supreme Leader and you’re not my apprentice and you know my whole family but you call me Ben then who are you to me?” 

“If you don’t get me out of these binders, you’ll never find out.” 

That seemed to convince him. He unlocked her wrists and the two of them made a mad dash for the hangar. Stealing a First Order ship proved to be a lot easier when no one knew who she was and she was with Snoke’s loyal apprentice. 

\--

They’d cleared Starkiller airspace before he spoke again. 

“You’ve only given me selective information. Haven’t you?” he asked. 

“I don’t know what will happen if I tell you everything.” She shook her head, “There are things that even now we’ve done that I-”

“If you were talking to the me that you know in the future, would you trust him enough to tell him?” he asked. 

That gave Rey pause. Apparently, in their silent escape, he’d had some time to think. 

“I would.”

He nodded, pretended to check some controls. “And you say in the future that I become the Supreme Leader… that I’m powerful and strong. Are my enemies gone?” 

Rey remained quiet, but nodded. His enemies were gone, it was true. 

“If what you say is true, if getting me back to your time will make me Supreme Leader, make me powerful like my grandfather, then I will help you get back to your time any way I can.”

His reasoning was annoying, even though it completely tracked with who he was at this time, but still, he had agreed to help her and that was enough. 

“But you have to make me a deal,” he added. 

“Ok,” Rey said warily. 

“Do you know how to erase someone’s memories?” he asked. 

“Uh,” Rey started. “By the force? Yes.” Strange, she thought. 

“I will help you do this if I can ask you anything I want about my future, and you have to answer me honestly.” 

“I don’t think-”

He held up a hand, “Once we’ve resolved all of this, you can erase my memories of the conversation ever happening. I just want to know, for a moment. I’m curious.” 

That… actually seemed fair. “Ok,” Rey said. “I’m trusting you on this, you have a deal.” 

“You must be tired from the first ritual. Whatever we do to correct it, you can siphon off my power to help you. It’ll be stronger with both of us,” he said. Rey swallowed. With the bond, even if he didn’t know about it, he had no idea how much more powerful it would be. 

“But we’ll need the Jedi texts,” he went on. “Maybe you got something wrong in the translation. Or maybe there’s a way to undo all of this,” he mused. “You had the texts once, do you know where to find them again?” 

“Put in these coordinates,” she told him as she rattled of Ahch-To’s coordinates. “We... can discuss more about where we’re going later.” 

He seemed to agree to this, completely unaware that she was putting him right in front of his uncle, and already was acknowledging that this was a stupid plan. But he was right, they needed the texts.

“You should get some rest now,” she told him. “It’s a long flight.” 

“You should, too,” he said. He made to leave the cockpit then stopped and turned around. 

“There’s something I want to ask about,” he said softly.

“Already?” she asked. 

“Yes,” he said, and then paused. “I should’ve killed you, should’ve destroyed you the moment you used the force, and probably a few times after that, truthfully. But there’s been something this whole time telling me not to. Like a voice in the back of my head.”

She swallowed as he came closer. 

“And then there’s the way you look at me,” he went on, “the way that you say my name.” She just nodded. 

He continued to look at her, “We were in love, weren’t we?” 

She tried to laugh, choked up instead, from the stress of the day or exhaustion or some hole inside her chest that’s been sitting there for 2 weeks. “Believe it or not, it’s actually deeper than that.” 

He just nodded. “Goodnight, Rey.”


End file.
